Young Ravens

Literary Review

Issue 5

Young Ravens Literary Review

Issue 5

Winter 2016

Editorial Staff:

Sarah Page

Elizabeth Pinborough

Copyright © 2016 by the individual authors

All content and graphics in this publication may not be copied or republished without written

consent. Copyrights of individuals' work are held by the relevant author and requests for

reproduction should be made to them.

Contents

Cover Art “Vietnamese Dragonfruit” Tonya Hamill

Introduction 1

Lost in Acadia Shandi Kano 2

Demure Origins Janet R. Kirchheimer 3

& Jaclyn Piudik

After the Fiesta Robert Ford 5

Iron man Mark A. Fisher 6

Midwinter Mallow Tonya Hamill 7

Voluntati Ignis Eli T. Mond 8

Lighthouses Dani Dymond 9

Ascension Myth Seth Jani 10

Ascending Chad M. Horn 11

Journeyman Judith Kelly Quaempts 12

Untitled Jennie Harward 16

Dowsing Seth Jani 17

Like Broken Shells Tonya Hamill 18

Kiss the Sky Jennie Harward 19

The Port au Port Peninsula Kersten Christianson 20

Rain Song Ed Higgins 21

Jade Cove Thomas Piekarski 22

Old Orchard Beach Pier Alec Solomita 25

California Aqueduct on McKittrick Hwy. Don Thompson 26

Out There Marc Carver 27

Fall Dew Shandi Kano 28

On Days of Slow Rain Carol Smallwood 29

Papillon Allison Gish 30

Earth Silhouettes Tonya Hamill 33

The Ant Mackenzie Dwyer 34

Fury: In Praise of Stone Janet R. Kirchheimer 35

& Jaclyn Piudik

Winter Can Wait Fabrice Poussin 36

Before Winter’s First Frost Robert Ford 37

Mountain King Micahel Keshigian 38

Earth Pulse: Dani Dymond 39

Ode to Connecticut’s Sleeping Giant State Park

Wasatch Dawn Patrol Shandi Kano 40

Where Celsius and Fahrenheit Meet Kersten Christianson 41

Earth Banwynn (Suta) Oakshadow 42

Winter Storm Terri Simon 43

Monument in Ice Fabrice Poussin 44

The Proper Disposal of Clutter Richard Fein 45

Crystalline Thinking Anthony Rubino 46

Untitled Jennie Harward 49

Into the Wind Andrew Hubbard 50

The Sharp Air Matthew Burns 52

Review: Meteor Shower by Anne Whitehouse 53

Contributor Biographies 54

Introduction

In the fifth issue of Young Ravens Literary Review, authors and artists explore the four

elements of fire, water, earth and air. Imagination explodes from the embers of dead

stars as we dive into our own humanity through the many ways we both lose and find

ourselves in the natural world: A bonfire entwines two lives in the darkness with the

illusion of age and the promise of growing old with a loved one. Water rolls broken

shells smooth as our own jagged edges are challenged and cleansed by the tides of time.

Stones strain with the weight of a sleeping giant, veins pumping with fresh snow melt.

A man follows the bliss of an unruly breeze into wild solitude—inviting only the reader

to follow.

Sarah Page & Elizabeth Pinborough, Co-editors

Shandi Kano

Lost in Acadia

Janet R. Kirchheimer & Jaclyn Piudik

Demure Origins

Vital memory eliminates timeshare of earth’s decision,

a sheave of mist rises as bark, petrichor, lemonflower

usher spark into seed: a rash altruism of hearkening, a seething

contradiction, fracture of ocean into grass as mercy from conversation.

The weaver disperses herbs, constellations whisper growth,

and music preserves textual vowels; intonations explore

tousled heavens and descend to sever mystery, move fescue

to leaf, etchings of pristine vetiver boughed to reveal up-crowded turf

ravenous for broken moisture, slush. Anointed seedlings

trample vines as foxes break through barriers of threes.

Division lights a path among thorns and lilies.

Radical rationing of time flourishes among orbs.

Sight to be moored, ribboned in firmament’s bark,

deliberates being – between hail and hallelujah,

luster and mundanity – ulcerating the grammar of years.

A vault eclipses bdellium, elides with evidence of

consensus and suppression, reverberates in pristine wasteland,

retries enmity, primordial to destruction and disclosure.

Casual in its praise and law, uprooted principles fragment,

and elemental compositions moon-blur as stellar disagreement

arises to negotiate amidst cubits of infinitesimal liquid notes;

intonations followed by letters undulate across interstices.

awaiting ascension: a test of shining. Humors impend,

bedecked as diglossia for attendant light, memorizing

greatness and minutia, gilding and stain, cosmos and cross breeze.

Carved and weighted forces enliven the foundation

of dominance, the transposition of seed is desolation bound

in its giving of back-lit pleasure into practice.

A model of motion, an allegorical burn, balletic – as a prism

of benign refraction ordains shadow into keepsake.

The howling mire, written in borrowed skies, cradles

praxis, appellations indelible, to sow the highest alchemy.

Robert Ford

After the Fiesta

it rained ash for several hours, some still glowing, alight

at the edges as it fell, but mostly in simple grey swirls,

without choreography. Once gravity’s demands

had been obeyed, it began collecting in the gutters,

covering the empty cigarette cartons, parked cars,

the plaza, more like the shroud of Pompeii than the

sum fallout of those house-high stacks of broken pallets

and old furniture heaped on every corner, and then

ripped apart by flames, right up to the lurid effigies crowing

from their summits. The fires disappeared, the streets

filling up again with the gluey flow of feet and traffic, trying to

move on to anywhere, yet penned impatiently against itself

like bulls. Fuelled by cuba libre, and thinking that in this city,

this country, we might somehow grow up to be kids again,

we put our tongues out into the night, believing it was snow,

believing we could taste salvation itself on the sacred air.

Mark A. Fisher

Iron man

ghosts of old stars

waft on magnetic breezes

and spin down

through dead skies

to new worlds

of metal and flame

learning to breathe

the burning poison of life

that wrests from stone

the gods' scythe

to shear through knots

and cut past weakness

of blood and bone

where is found ashes

ashes of stars

transfigured.

Tonya Hamill

Midwinter Mallow

Eli T. Mond

Voluntati Ignis

I had a wish some time ago

To walk the skies with ancient spirits.

I threw that wish into a flame

On the back of a murky whisper.

Moments made of silence, bar

The crackle of the pyre, passed

And every ember gave to me

A brilliant incantation.

It was as if the fire and I were one.

It’s times like these, beside that flickering force,

When I ponder my lineage.

I wonder if I am I a child of the fire

Or if I was I born of the darkness it conquers?

Dani Dymond

Lighthouses

A bowl of lit wood and LA Times articles

popped below us on the sands of Long Beach.

Those pits illuminated like roaming dots

across the seaside, furious – floating – lanterns.

The bonfire clung to my hair, its ashes

peppering the strands. It gave you a glimpse

of our lives in later years, my youth

momentarily masked by the soot.

Your smile was a beacon in that night air,

the promise I needed, knowing that I’d be

sharing front porch rockers someday

with the man who grinned at me over flames.

Seth Jani

Ascension Myth

He visualized a bird

Rising from the mass

Of huddled things:

The black trees, the city streets,

The confused, burning words

In the mouths of lovers.

The bird rose trailing

Streaks of clarity

In its wake,

The whole world

Pulled behind it

Like radiant cargo.

People began looking up

From the small centers

Of their lives

To see the bird glittering

Into space.

Gravity had been uprooted,

Tethering the earth

To something far off

In the mercurial darkness.

The wind from the bird’s

Wings replaced the air

With sustaining fractals.

We breathed a new element

Into our lungs.

We fell upwards

Like startled fish

Poking their heads

Through silent water.

Chad M. Horn

Ascending

Journeyman

by

Judith Kelly Quaempts

I set out before dawn, the horizon an endless darkness shrouding the mountains.

As the sun starts its upward climb, my road narrows, begins to rise. A path opens into a

wood. Scents of pine, rotted leaves, and wild honeysuckle rush to claim me. Shadows

weave through the trees. Heavy wings beat overhead. Breaking into a clearing I

discover a rushing stream. Drinking are a doe and fawn. Nearby, a blue heron stands

beside a lean coyote with a jagged white scar on her flank.

The merciless eye of the heron chills me. Am I being accused or judged? The doe

nudges me to drink. I bend my mouth to water, tasting wet stones, moss, a part of sky

reflected on the stream’s lucent surface. When I have had my fill, Coyote takes my

sleeve between her teeth and pulls.

Obedient, I follow.

Now a new path, clogged with brush and brambles. Coyote leads, but unlike me,

appears to melt through every obstacle.

I walk until morning becomes the hour before night. At last the coyote stops before a

cave, holds me with her yellow gaze until a great weariness overcomes me. Entering, I

fall to earth and sleep.

I wake, exit the mouth of the cave and find them waiting – an eagle perched on the head

of a cougar, coyote pressed to the great bulk of a bear. Elk, deer, snake and mole,

wolverine and otter.

The coyote’s yellow eyes bore into mine. The scar on her flank begins to pulse with

light. In a swirl of mist she changes shape. In her place, clothed in white buckskin

beaded with stars, long silver braids wrapped in ermine, stands my grandmother, her

face painted with the sacred colors: yellow, blue, white, and red.

I remember now the legends. Coyote, Shape-Shifter, able to take all forms, speak all

languages except that of water.

“You have forgotten The Way,” Grandmother says. “You have forgotten your place in

the universe. We creatures offer ourselves as food, clothing, and shelter, yet you show

no respect for our sacrifice. You do not cleanse body and mind before you hunt, nor

when you dig the roots the Old One places in the ground. Everything is connected.

Everything. Balance must be restored.”

Her words lash like willow whips. I look down, ashamed.

“Do not look away from me.” This voice is harsh, no longer my grandmother’s.

I raise my head. Coyote is back.

“We guided you here to show you what pride and greed have stolen. Are you willing to

journey with us for a time? Think hard before you answer, for when you return to your

world, as you must, what you learn here must be shared with others.”

My heart pounds but my voice is strong. “I am willing.”

My bare flesh begins to sing. My bones glow and soften, realign their shape. I drop to

all fours and a chorus of sighs comes from the creatures.

“Come,” Coyote says. “Your journey begins.”

*

I do not know how long we travel. Time is different here, guided by sun and moon and

weather. Past and present braid together. I see the land as in my grandparents’ time;

river shining in noonday sun, the leap and arc of salmon, then clogged with poisons,

dead fish floating on the water.

Coyote leads me past woods ruined by cutting, valleys used for dumping. She leads me

past the dead and dying – elk, antlers taken for trophy, meat rotting on the bone; birds,

lead-poisoned; coyotes stripped of hides. Their spirits thin as smoke, accompany our

journey. My grandmother’s words haunt me: “Everything is connected. Everything.”

I had put aside her teachings, telling myself they were the ramblings of an old woman

unwilling to accept new ways. Yet what has my ignorance brought me? Brought all of

us? At the end of the day we ourselves cannot explain our unease.

“Once,” Coyote says, “all shared what they had. Haven’t you seen how lonely the

children have become without the wisdom of their elders? Their hearts are empty. They

look to fill their emptiness with useless toys, or drugs, or fighting with others.”

Her words remind me of the children I see roaming our lands, their eyes empty or

accusing.

*

We have come full circle, back to the cave. The creatures form two lines, male and

female. They begin to chant, feet moving in time. My heart answers their rhythm,

beating like a drum in my ears.

I am losing my animal form, but so are the creatures. All take human shapes. All wear

buckskin bright with beads. The earth shakes with their dancing.

A terrible sadness overtakes me when the dancing ends, for I alone do not regain my

animal form.

Coyote steps forward, the scar on her flank blazing blue fire.

“We have shown you what happens when balance between our worlds is destroyed.

Now you are to share what you have seen with others. Many will mock you, but some

will listen, and your numbers will grow.”

Yellow eyes hold mine. “We will not abandon you.”

Lightning bolts from a cloudless sky. Thunder shakes the earth, raising a cyclone of

leaves.

When calm returns, I am alone.

*

I reach home before dawn. Leaves are scattered through the rooms of my house. On a

windowsill lies a blue heron feather.

From a trunk I take my grandfather’s hand drum, put away these many years. Facing

east, I wait for first light. From the distance comes a long, unwavering howl. Coyote,

bidding farewell to night.

I strike the drum, begin the ancient song to welcome the new day. Though I believed

the words forgotten, each one comes true and strong.

My journey begins.

Jennie Harward

Untitled

Seth Jani

Dowsing

In the green spaces

There is an animal

We call the soul.

At least the light

On tapestry walls

We consider spectral,

The blueness of marinas

At sundown.

Don’t believe it’s anything

But pragmatic radiance

And even the trees

Will discard your problems.

Being real is half

Discernable root,

And half deductible wind.

The birds believe in music

Because it erupts

From their throats

As pressure,

As unquantified flame.

The element they speak of

Is like dowsing for water

In arroyos of salt.

There were rivers there once,

And will be again.

Tonya Hamill

Like Broken Shells

Like broken shells

We lie, just below the surface of the water

Crushing and incomplete

Yet trying to appear whole

We roll and ride the currents

And sometimes wake up in the exact same place

And other times, travel worlds

Both deeper and higher to places we’ve never been

The water fills the gap

Between what appears to be real,

And what is

Sifting our sadness

Challenging our rough edges

And ultimately cleansing us through a process

Of tides

And all along it surrounds us

. . . this liquid glass

unceasingly filling our incompletes.

Jennie Harward

Kiss the Sky

Kersten Christianson

The Port au Port Peninsula

This far shore measures

the cadence of old French and Basque languages,

the first notes of a fiddle removed from a battered case;

the old songs and stories of fine catch and shipwrecks

around crackling bonfire;

perhaps even the laughter of a little girl

who disappeared into the rock,

into the sea.

We gather fossilized rocks

imprinted with the signatures of trilobites.

There is wave-battered wood broken from lobster pots,

knotted rope, and broken shells

to haul home for winter beading projects.

This far shore keeps the beat of my heart.

Ed Higgins

Rain Song

“Rich showering rain and recompense richer afterward.”

—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

Feelin’, feelin’ good, down-fallin’ down

rain, rain, rain came today,

wet alfresco alchemy,

welcome in my dry-so-long brain.

Walkin’ through drip thick sound

crushed, splayed cloud thickets––

even irony washing by rivers full

out of my gray desert head.

Over the dripping haze days

of my dry now-again-alive those

until otherwise arid skin-and-bones

burdens flushed clean as wild-a-way.

Rained, to this season’s dense roots

I rise, rise, surprised anew. A new fluid

song in some druid-ancient oak trunk,

or my garden’s favorite yellow rose.

Or better watered yet, Walt’s own wit

witness of green goings-on. Washed down

leaves of all-again we’re forever grass:

with life rising, risen from it.

Thomas Piekarski

Jade Cove

There are certain places I call home whenever I visit them.

The Tetons are one, Tetons immaculately slit by glacial ice,

majestic as Swiss Alps. Rockaway Beach near San Francisco

where an army-green ocean favors octopi with incredibly

intelligent tentacles. The Grand Canyon so vast, cut by a mere

wandering river. And not the least Yosemite, its Half Dome

and El Capitan ominous practically beyond comprehension.

But I’m never more at home than at Jade Cove. Oh how I

relish this hidden little enclave where Pacific breakers splash.

Jade Cove is the virtual epicenter of Big Sur, its steep cliffs

conspicuously perilous. One must take calculated baby steps

down them or could easily slip and perish. For centuries birds

of countless breeds have nested here in pines of the mighty

Santa Lucia mountains that heave their gigantic shoulders

to the edge of the sand a thousand feet unto a roisterous sea.

Those birds form a cooperative, share equally in nature’s

plenitude—the tundra swan, sooty shearwater, blue-winged

teal, red-throated loon, all of them thrive above the shore.

Dear Sadie, daughter of enchanted dreams and astrobiology,

your Filipina eyes, slightly slanted, and smooth brown skin

mirror the jade in abundance here. Sensible Sadie, let us clasp

hands, descend this ageless cliff. As you know, love doesn’t

come easily, one must work for it. It must be collected like jade

and spread freely throughout mankind. It’s up to you and me

to collect and spread this jade before it’s too late, spread it near

and far, wherever love goes wanting. And this must be pure jade,

not its close cousin serpentine, often mistaken for it, that forms

the spine of California’s coastal range. Serpentine which is thrust

to the surface by faults that grind, groan, and heave up the bowels

of inner Earth, collected in abundance by hikers along the summit.

Fantastic magic exists in jade, jade carved throughout centuries

into talismans by the Chinese, Mayans, and such exotic peoples.

It’s reported that the Costanoan Indians who lived here believed

that before the beginning the world was entirely covered by ocean.

Then a single mountaintop rose from the lifeless sea, and on its land

the first falcon, hummingbird and coyote were born. And from them

all other species evolved. I’m not sure of this. But I know that today

in the luxurious littorals of these rugged shores crustaceans survive

in spite of ocean’s rising acidity, and that tuna, squid and seals wept

witnessing enslavement of the simple and peaceful Big Sur tribes

by invaders who bandied Lord and sword, insuring their servitude

and eventual extinction. They were deemed savages in the main

because their gods didn’t die on a cross. Now look! An albatross

lands on a big rock, appears for all the world like a huge seagull,

and pelicans in single file swoop, catapult a yard or two above calm

ocean waters, oblivious in the rear view mirror of destiny. These days

we rise with the tide and go with the flow, not wondering why the sky

doesn’t speak to us, not conscious of the wind’s secret messages.

Remember, Sadie, the night has trillions of eyes, and they continually

peer down upon us as fog thickens in the valley of gloom. Although

we may not soon cease as a race, I wonder if there will be anything

of any significance to hold onto, to believe in once we exit Jade Cove.

Alec Solomita

Old Orchard Beach Pier

Don Thompson

California Aqueduct on McKittrick Hwy

An indecisive breeze comes and goes

across the water, tempo rubato,

and then finally dies.

Its current deep and unseen,

creating only an illusion of stillness,

the Aqueduct moves on.

And so does time,

although I’ve stolen some to sit here

and let my mind slow down

for an adagio hour—

which is at least soothing

and perhaps not an illusion.

Marc Carver

Out There

Outside the heaviest rain I have ever seen

thumps the earth.

I count the distance between the thunder and the lightning

I get an urge to go out in it

I hold back, put the football on, then turn the cable off

so that all that is left is the carrier signal that looks like tiny creatures moving about.

They look a bit like each other, the rain in the window and the signal they say is the

only thing out there in space

but I don't believe them.

Shandi Kano

Fall Dew

Carol Smallwood

On Days of Slow Rain

I’m a child again

wanting to read

darkened tree bark

like Braille.

Papillon

by

Allison Gish

Morning came and sun washed over mountains and tin houses with golden peaceful

light and the sticky sweet air that took us all in like family. In this way the sun came to

me in my small island hotel room, slipping past thin linen curtains and the peeling

white windowsills. For a moment I sat with the sun and wondered what am I doing

here? but then stood and let those thoughts fall.

Yellow-painted wooden steps creaked and cackled as I made my way down stairs,

walking towards the promise of breakfast. A bowl of corn flakes and a chipped teacup

met me at the pension’s breakfast nook. The old French woman who everyone called

“Maman” sat with me and spoke of the island in peaceful, songlike measure.

“I came here for two weeks, with only a backpack, when I was 25 and I never left.” She

explained, stirring brown sugar crystals into her tea. “I fell in love with this island and

started working for the woman who used to own this hotel. C’est la vie.” She looked

out over the sunflowers to the turquoise sea. I could see the water churning and the

waves crashing in the reflection of her similarly brilliant blue eyes.

There were other young women at the breakfast table as well. They ate quietly with the

occasional laugh or comment. It was that warm, familiar quiet inherent at a table full of

mothers and daughters; a quiet that is born from an incommunicable mutual

understanding. “Look at you all,” Maman chided, “I should rename the hotel ‘Maman’s

home for vagabond girls.’”

The other young women left for beaches or winding jungle paths and Maman invited

me to her garden. We walked to the backyard and the hot, salty wind seemed to push

my ankles along, ushering me into this small oasis. Hundreds of butterflies floated

through the garden like little orbs of light. They beat their tiny paper wings against the

island breeze, perched themselves upon leafs and flowers, unfurled their wings to the

sky and absorbed the energy of the kind sun above. Wide eyed with awe and joy, I

turned to Maman and asked, “Where do they all come from?”

“I have no idea,” she replied, looking over the butterflies as if they were her children,

“but they adore this garden and I am honored. They seem so holy.” A monarch landed

on her shoulder and she smiled. She pulled up a nearby leaf, exposing a microcosm of a

thousand tiny eggs. “They hatch from these eggs into small caterpillars. They eat the

leaf and become it, in a sense—for the milkweed’s toxicity becomes the monarch’s

protection from predators, too.”

“And if they are born to the wrong leaf?” I asked, my eyes skipping from one plant to

the next, imagining miniature galaxies of butterfly eggs on each. “I suppose mothers

just know to lay their eggs in the right place,” she shrugged.

We walked on and when she found what she needed, knelt on the dirt path to become

level with the golden chrysalis that she now gingerly cradled. “When the caterpillar is

fully grown its skin becomes a chrysalis which envelops its tiny body. After about two

weeks it is reborn as a butterfly.” She reached over to what looked like a pinecone or a

dried leaf. “This is the cocoon of what will be a moth. These little loves got the short end

of the stick, if you ask me. They bake in their cocoons for six months, sometimes only to

live as moths for five days. Mother nature forgot to give them mouths to eat. She is a

wildly unpredictable woman.”

Misty drops of rain began to fall from the clear sky that the sun still held. Maman

looked skywards. “Here she is now,” Maman laughed, extending her hands to receive

the water, “blessing us with a clear morning rain.”

I sat back against a cool stonewall, letting the fine raindrops gather in beads on my hair

and skin. I looked at the cocoon, which held an intricately spun organism, waiting for

birth and for its five days on earth. I pressed my hands into my damp hair, into my

throbbing sticky temples, embraced the familiar feeling that brought me to this place.

How absurd is this all, I thought. Absurd are this trip and these moths and the random,

spinning earth we call home.

Overcome with both an inane sense of trust for Maman and a dread of the chaos that

had begun to unfold before me, silent tears escaped my eyes. “What am I doing here?” I

asked, again, aloud, of nowhere in particular. She held me in her eyes as I delved into

that gentle maternal gaze, searching there for some answer to my massive inquiry. “Ma

cherie,” she replied, “you are learning!”

That evening I returned to my room to find on the bed a cracking leather bible, half

open and emitting a half moon glow. I read what was underlined: “I will lift mine eyes

unto the hills! ” I placed the bible down on the soft white sheets and floated over to the

window, slid out onto the fire escape and crept down the dewy metal ladder, slipped

past the absurd. I stood up on the garden’s stonewall and lifted my eyes onto the hills,

lit by the waxing moon. “Mère Nature!” I exclaimed, teasing any meaning out of those

mountains. The moths and I danced all night with our mother and her swinging full

moon hips; we were learning to fall in love with not knowing as we spiraled the sun

five or fifty thousand times.

1 "Psalm 121." The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments. New York: American Bible

Society, 1962.

Tonya Hamill

Earth Silhouettes

Mackenzie Dwyer

The Ant A Found Poem

Imagine a single ant

walking around Planet Earth over

& over again. Suppose it takes one footstep

every million years. By the time

the ant’s feet have worn down the Earth

to the size of a pea,

eternity has not even begun.

Ball, Johnny. Go Figure!: A Totally Cool Book about Numbers. New York: DK Pub.,

2005. Print.

Janet R. Kirchheimer & Jaclyn Piudik

Fury: In Praise of Stone

hewn from a quarry

covered in light

a rainless summer

particles arid and calm

petrified lengths, miles

of savage grandeur

heeled in inquiry

a commencement of growth

beseeching wilderness

before mercy, a realm

of converted curtains

a roof from which to build

iridescent moorings

brittle dunes yearning

for moisture, coupling

saliva with mud

pebbles emerge, precious

foundations, stalactite beams

with twilight, engraved images

bare and bloody, potions

of procreation spewing

clotted with tomorrows past

[and] every yesterday

still to be chiseled.

Fabrice Poussin

Winter Can Wait

Robert Ford

Before Winter’s First Frost

an unprecedented silence is combing the air,

and colours are forgetting themselves below

darkening rafts of sky, a universe-deep in stars,

reaching in between the crowded roofscapes.

Perhaps a milk-jug moon is flooding monochrome

ghostlight over the cupped hands of the valley,

laying up shadows with fuse-wire precision.

At the appointed moment, a page is calmly turned,

and a hush of ice heaves crystals through

the geometry of the soil, or feathers its way

across the windows of cars on every street,

its signature written on a contract, now honoured.

Michael Keshigian

Mountain King

He imagines the high hills,

cool mist rising from

the valleys between,

vagrant ice patches that linger.

It is his, in his mind’s eye,

that hall of the mountain king

where nature opens before him

beyond the tips of great white pines

that shelter his secret.

The eagles pay homage

when he walks by,

the great cats purr from a roar.

He stares into the scented air

that moments before

cleansed his skin

with a cool, wet breath.

Master of this dominion,

his hair is on fire

peeking, like the sun,

between the vaulted crevices,

his body pulsates

to the rhythm of wind

that forces the clouds

to shear upon the pointed tips,

releasing the rain

like sheets of wavering grain

that greet him

and nourish the wildflowers

that attract the yellow bees

and hummingbirds with piercing beaks,

scattering the moths

that saturate the sky.

Dani Dymond

Earth Pulse

Ode to Connecticut’s Sleeping Giant State Park

Muddy shoes have marked his body

with train-track zigzags of dirt. Alive

as you or I, he breathes in sighs of trees

and panoramic views of Connecticut.

He is called the Sleeping Giant, a green

silhouette of head, torso, and trunk.

We hike along this row of hills, placed

perfectly by whichever creator you may

believe in. Trails decorate his figure,

crisscrossing vessels between red pines

and black birches. A collection of granite

clusters quietly near his chest, pretending

to be a heart. It would beat in breezes.

The blood it might pump could be snow

melt, a thaw that gives life to the goliath

with each coming spring. His hibernation

ends as the chestnut oaks revive in leaves,

bringing back those colors the winter stole.

When a visitor ambles along these peaks,

they may stop mid-step to inhale: a single

cell, taking in the air, indulging in oxygen

as it glides through the anatomy of a giant.

Shandi Kano

Wasatch Dawn Patrol

Kersten Christianson

Where Celsius and Fahrenheit Meet

In the outdoor

cold of a frozen street,

dark and empty,

40 below sounds

hollow.

Snow crystals coat the fur

of red fox chasing a red fox

through wind-shifting drifts -

fox trails.

Scampering shadows cast

by streetlight, dim aurora,

and sliver of moon

fade to

gray smoke lifting

from chimneys, our hair

frozen silver, a white thread

of the Yukon.

Banwynn (Suta) Oakshadow

Earth

[honored]

rune-stones silent --

hoar frost and rime cloak

bejewel sleeping Vikings.

Terri Simon

Winter Storm

I stare out the window

at the whirling snow

and lengthening icicles.

I know, in every pore,

that I watch my blood flow,

my bones grow.

And I know,

from toenail to hair root,

that the body I view

will melt long before my own.

I listen to the blizzard's wind-whipped words

and its knock upon the pane,

requesting entrance.

Even though I recognize a kindred spirit,

I do not reach for the glass.

Fabrice Poussin

Monument in Ice

Richard Fein

The Proper Disposal of Clutter

Yes the Pieta was within the marble all along,

and Michelangelo was a magician with his chisel,

but beneath master and masterpiece

lay the talus and scree of a thousand stillborn Pietas.

And legions of unborn Hamlets

were aborted on crumpled paper tossed into Shakespeare’s trash.

Even grade Z meat chucked from Emeril’s Cajun kitchen

can be seasoned and stewed for gourmet tastes.

These maestros of shards, orts, and leavings,

these discerning demiurges of odds from ends,

these dumpster craftsmen, junk heap artisans,

prestidigitators of factory seconds,

who fashion aesthetics out of ashes,

we should all be in awe on their rag-picker genius.

And so each time you spring-clean worn-out possessions,

don’t haggle them away on flea market tables,

but leave those castoffs on the curbs

where soon to be discovered unknown artists

prowl skid row streets for inspiration.

Crystalline Thinking

by

Anthony Rubino

I teach ceramics in a New York City public school. I enjoy walking around the West

Side, near Central park, taking in the sights and sounds. I peer over at a group of

garbage cans outside of a four-story walkup. “That’s a nice picture frame”, I think and I

make my way over to have a closer look. As an artist, it’s my second nature to peruse.

Once I found a great oil painting of Venice, painted in the 1880’s, right on the curb. That

was a great find. But no luck this time, the picture frame is shabby and shakes when I

wiggle it - but what’s this? Someone has thrown out a sparkling geode about the size of

a half coconut. I pick it up and admire the beauty of the lilac and violet amethyst

crystals. I know they sell these at the Museum of Natural History, and they’re not

cheap.

But do I really want to carry it?

My book bag is already overloaded. I lift the geode and hold it; I like the feel of its

weight. I mull it over. I realize that my students would get a kick out of seeing the way

the crystals shimmer in the light.

Finally the splendor of the stone sways me and I wedge it into my book bag. As I turn

to walk away it occurs to me that things like this only happen in New York; I mean -

who throws out something as beautiful as that?

Part of my amazement with the geode is its dual nature. Looking at the hard gray

crusty outside shell who would imagine its interior? Those shimmering, jewel - like

crystals create a counterpoint to the crustiness of its outer shell. I read that these rocks

were spewed out of a volcano, and that an air bubble forms inside them as the kava

hardens to stone. That air bubble creates a hollow interior. Minerals gradually seep into

the hollow and the jewel-like faceted crystals are formed. The geode I found that day

became a paper weight, a show and tell object on my teacher’s desk. My middle school

students enjoyed picking it up and watching its crystals dance in the light.

One day my paperweight was called into more serious service as teaching device. I was

having one of those days. It seemed every student in the ceramics room were intent on

shutting down anything I had to say, especially if it involved introducing the lesson.

Whether it was shuffling in their seats, a distracted antsiness, or the just plain yakity

yakking, I was on the verge of uttering those nasty words that are the scourge of every

art room –

“Take Out Your Notebooks!”

I could already imagine the students’ groaning at the thought of writing rather than

working with clay; but what’s a teacher to do? You need some quiet in order to begin.

Frustrated as hell, I happened to glance at my desk. I spotted my geode and picked it

up. Just holding it in my hand changed my demeanor, it gave me a sense of gravity. I

held it up to the class, having no solid idea of what I was going to say, but I had a

feeling. In the sternest voice I could muster, without getting loud, I began winging it.

“I know on the outside. you’re all looking like this to me.”

I held the rough crusty side of the half geode for them to see. After the previous 10

minutes of stress and strain, holding up that gray rock finally got their attention. They

stared, wondering what I would say next.

“The outside of this geode is how you look to me when you’re behaving like this”,

I showed the charcoal gray, rough, volcanic looking side of the stone. Now they were all

interest, trying to figure out - “What’s Mr. Teach up to, comparing us to a crusty stone?”

I continued, saying it again for effect; “I know on the outside you sometimes look like

this to me”, then softening my voice, I added; “But on the inside- this is what you really

look like, this is how you really are”.

At this, I turned the geode around and revealed the sparkling amethyst crystals. The

kids sat still, bemused, gazing as the lavender facet of the crystals glittered in the light.

A quiet aura fell on the room. I took that as a good sign and continued building my

metaphor. With a gusto, I thrust the geode towards them, allowing them to see close up,

the shimmering crystals. I spoke for another minute or so and explained that, although

we had just been tussling, I knew their inner selves - their inner being, deep down,

looked like this. I watched as they drank in the beauty of the geode’s glistening jewel

like interior.

And with that, I said, “OK now let’s get to work”. I felt a non- verbal hooray exude

from my students as they quietly gathered up their supplies to continue on their clay

projects. We were all relieved to put our dumb battle behind us and spend our time

doing something enjoyable- making things out of clay.

Teaching the ceramic shop turned out to be a real creative adventure for me. And what

became of my geode paperweight? It stood on my desk for years, periodically emerging

out of the sea of student drawings and teaching notes that float on my desk. The

students never tired of looking at it, turning it to make the crystals shimmer in the light

and asking me;

“Mr. R - can I have this? Can I take it home?”

Over the years I incorporated my “pet” crystal into my teaching. It became my visual

metaphor when students were misbehaving - comparing their inner selves to the beauty

of the geometric crystals seemed to win them over. When I thought about it later, I

shouldn’t have been so surprised. With the growing pains they endure as teenagers,

their life can be a bundle of concerns and confusion. They were probably glad to have

someone notice that, within their inner selves, they held such natural beauty.

Jennie Harward

Untitled

Andrew Hubbard

Into the Wind

The wind today

Is a force to be reckoned with.

The pines and oaks and hemlocks

Sway and toss and bow to each other.

I can’t help thinking

They enjoy it

As much as I do.

It’s December. The wind

Throws knives of cold.

I put on a heavy jacket.

The wife won’t come with me.

Even the dogs show no interest.

That’s ok. My own company is satisfactory.

I step out and the wind pulls my breath away

The cold keeps it from coming back

Until I turn downwind and pull in hard.

I head into the woods,

The trees break the wind

At my level, but up high

The treetops roar

With a sound like nothing else.

The deer don’t like it:

The can’t hear what’s coming—

They flick their ears

And make their dainty way

To their safe place

Their secret place

That I have never found.

The squirrels are in their huge, messy nests,

The birds have taken the day off,

I am alone like the wind.

Matthew Burns

The Sharp Air

The river I don’t know

rumples over its rocks

and carries anything

that falls in—silt and brush,

a tumbleweed blown

from ten miles away.

The river, clear and silent.

When I crouch at its trembling lip

or pitch the rare flat stone across its skin,

I am looking for something

to carry me, not away but up.

Like the chickadee’s call to its mate

that goes bay-bee and bay-bee

until she calls back with same

and they go on beside the river

so the water carries this, too, away;

so that it unwinds and eddies,

like the silt of missing,

into the air; the sharp air,

carrying everything it can hold.

Review:

Meteor Shower by Anne Whitehouse

In Meteor Shower, Anne Whitehouse performs a delicate balancing act between the

evanescence of life and the coming oblivion that is mortality’s ineluctable end. The

poems in her collection dance across the expanse of time as she sorrows for what she

has been forced to give up with each step, and yet still finds again in joyful glimpses of

her younger self, much like the beautiful traces of “once living selves” in falling leaves.

The natural world is the jewel through which many of her words shimmer. She moves

from the stark ivory finality of walrus bones and a narrow fox skeleton to brush against

eternity in her poem, “Glimpse of Glory,” where she realizes that her dying

grandmother was never gaining her physical strength back, but rather “her spirit was

readying for the infinite.” As Whitehouse yearns “to live gently” in a world where no

one can choose their end, readers will yearn, too, lost in her sidereal verse that seeks to

bridge finite limits to connect with the immensity of being human—and beyond.

—Sarah Page, Co-editor, Young Ravens Literary Review

Contributor Biographies

Matthew Burns

Matthew Burns teaches writing and literature in upstate New York and is currently a

poetry editor at Heron Tree. His poem “Rhubarb” won a James Hearst Poetry Prize from

North American Review; other poems have received Pushcart and Best of the Net

nominations and have appeared or are forthcoming in Posit, ellipsis…, The Raleigh

Review, Camas, Spoon River Poetry Review, anderbo, Quiddity, Heron Tree, LimeHawk, and

others.

Marc Carver

Just sometimes I get it right and it makes all the waking up in the middle of the night

with some obscure poem going around my head worthwhile. I hope people enjoy my

work.

Kersten Christianson

Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school English-teaching

Alaskan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry through the Low-Residency

Program at the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2016. Her recent work has appeared

in Cirque, Tidal Echoes, Fredericksburg Literary & Art Review, Inklette, On the Rusk,

We’Moon, Sheila-Na-Gig and Pure Slush. Kersten co-edits the quarterly journal Alaska

Women Speak. When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon

Territory, she lives in Sitka, Alaska with her husband and photographer Bruce

Christianson, and daughter Rie.

Mackenzie Dwyer

Since I could read, I've known a longing to make a mark on literature. But another

landmark decision of mine was to drop out of marksmanship Junior Olympics

qualifying rounds to go earn my black belt and a concussion. My work has garnered

regional Scholastic Art & Writing Awards recognition along with five recent

acceptances, one being my piece Behind My Eyes in Ink in Thirds Magazine.

Dani Dymond

Dani Dymond is a twenty-three-year-old college student majoring in English/Creative

Writing and minoring in sleep deprivation. Her poetry has appeared in publications

such as Young Ravens Literary Review, Outrageous Fortune, BuckOff Magazine, and The

Bitchin’ Kitsch, as well as several university magazines, namely collections coming out

of Santiago Canyon College, Asnuntuck Community College, and Southern Connecticut

State University. She is a feminist, vegetarian, activist, and obsessive dog mom. While

she wishes poets were paid in licorice and Netflix subscriptions, finishing her MFA at

CSULB and teaching writing at the college level will wonderfully suffice.

Mark A. Fisher

Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tehachapi, CA. His poetry has

appeared in: A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Dragon Poet Review, Altadena Poetry Review,

Penumbra, Elegant Rage: A Poetic Tribute to Woody Guthrie, and many other places. His

chapbook, drifter, is available from Amazon. His plays have appeared on California

stages in Pine Mountain Club, Tehachapi, Bakersfield, and Hayward. His column “Lost

in the Stars” (http://mathnerde.blogspot.com/) has appeared in Tehachapi's The Loop

newspaper for several years. He has also won cooking ribbons at the Kern County Fair.

Robert Ford

Robert Ford lives on the east coast of Scotland. His poetry has appeared in both print

and online publications in the UK and US, including Antiphon, Clear Poetry, Eunoia

Review and Wildflower Muse. More of his work can be found at

https://wezzlehead.wordpress.com/

Allison Gish

Allison Gish is a student at Scripps College. She is deeply infatuated with the

relationship between nature and prose.

Richard Fein

Richard Fein was a finalist in The 2004 New York Center for Book Arts Chapbook

Competition, A Chapbook of his poems was published by Parallel Press, University of

Wisconsin, Madison. He has been published in many web and print journals such as

Cordite, Cortland Review, Off Course, Reed, Southern Review, Roanoke Review, Green

Silk Journal, Birmingham Poetry, Mississippi Review, Paris/atlantic, Canadian

Dimension, Black Swan Review Review, Exquisite Corpse, Foliate Oak, Morpo Review,

Ken*Again Oregon East, Southern Humanities Review, Morpo, Skyline, Touchstone,

Windsor Review, Maverick, Parnassus Literary Review, Small Pond, Kansas Quarterly,

Blue Unicorn, Exquisite Corpse, Terrain Aroostook Review, Compass Rose, Whiskey

Island Review, Oregon East, Bad Penny Review, Constellations, The Kentucky Review,

Muddy River , And Many Others.

Tonya Hamill

Tonya Hamill graduated with a BA in English Education from Brigham Young

University. She grew up near Seattle, WA, and currently lives in Orem, UT, with her

husband and three children. Tonya loves teaching, service, business, art, and above all,

her family and her God.

Jennie Harward

Jennie Harward is a photographer in the Pacific Northwest. You can find more about

her work at www.giglpix.com. Learn more about Jennie and her music at

@willowandthewolf.

Ed Higgins

My poems and short fiction have appeared in various print and online journals

including: Monkeybicycle, Tattoo Highway, Word Riot, Triggerfish Critical Review,

and Blue Print Review, among others. My wife and I live on a small farm in Yamhill,

OR, raising a menagerie of animals including two whippets, a manx barn cat (who

doesn’t care for the whippets), two Bourbon Red turkeys (King Strut and Nefra-

Turkey), and an alpaca named Machu-Picchu. I teach literature at George Fox

University, south of Portland, OR. I’m also Asst. Fiction Editor for Brilliant Flash

Fiction, an Ireland-based flash journal.

Chad M. Horn

Chad M. Horn is an award winning author and mixed-media artist. He serves as emcee

of numerous annual Kentucky Writer's events.

Andrew Hubbard

Andrew Hubbard was born and raised in a coastal Maine fishing village. He earned

degrees in English and Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and Columbia

University, respectively. For most of his career he has worked as Director of Training

for major financial institutions, creating and delivering Sales, Management, and

Technical training for user groups of up to 4,000. He has had four prose books

published, and his fifth book, a collection of poetry, was published in 2014 by

Interactive Press. He is a casual student of cooking and wine, a former martial arts

instructor and competitive weight lifter, a collector of edged weapons, and a licensed

handgun instructor. He lives in rural Indiana with his family, two Siberian Huskies,

and a demon cat.

Seth Jani

Seth Jani currently resides in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress

(www.sevencirclepress.com). His own work has been published widely in such places

as The Coe Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, Hawai`i Pacific Review, VAYAVYA,

Gingerbread House and Gravel. More about him and his work can be found

at www.sethjani.com.

Shandi Kano

Shandi is a media marketing and event producer residing in the Wasatch mountains of

Salt Lake. An ultramarathonner, snowboarder, splitboarder and full of life's stoke.

Michael Keshigian

Michael Keshigian’s tenth poetry collection, Beyond was released in May, 2015 by Black

Poppy. Other published books and chapbooks: Dark Edges, Eagle’s Perch, Wildflowers,

Jazz Face, Warm Summer Memories, Silent Poems, Seeking Solace, Dwindling Knight,

Translucent View. Published in numerous national and international journals, he is a 6-

time Pushcart Prize and 2-time Best Of The Net nominee. His poetry cycle, Lunar Images,

set for Clarinet, Piano, Narrator, was premiered at Del Mar College in Texas.

Subsequent performances occurred in Boston (Berklee College) and Moleto,

Italy. Winter Moon, a poem set for Soprano and Piano, premiered in Boston.

(michaelkeshigian.com).

Janet R. Kirchheimer

Janet R. Kirchheimer is the author of How to Spot One of Us, (Clal, 2007). Her work has

appeared in several journals including Atlanta Review, Potomac Review, Limestone,

Connecticut Review, Kalliope, Common Ground Review, as well as many websites.

Currently, she is producing a poetry film entitled, After. Janet was nominated for a

Pushcart Prize, was a semi-finalist in the “Discovery”/The Nation contest, a finalist in

the Rachel Wetzsteon Prize from the 92nd St. Y, and received honorable mention in the

String Poet Prize. She teaches a creative writing class for seniors in Manhattan.

Eli T. Mond

Eli T. Mond is the pen name of David Davis, an English major at the University of

Michigan Dearborn. He is the founder and chief editor of 'The Ibis Head Review', a

poetry webzine. He has been an avid creative writer ever since junior high, mainly

working with poetry, however, he occasionally writes fiction as well. He's had poetry

published in two issues of Lyceum, as well as the July 2016 issue of Sick Lit Magazine.

Banwynn (Suta) Oakshadow

BanWynn (Suta*) Oakshadow is a writer, photographer and artist who grew up in rural

Ohio, and now resides in Sweden.Much of his poetry centers around nature, and he fell

in love with haiku after two strokes forced him to learn to read and write from scratch.

His poetry has been winning awards since 1978.

Thomas Piekarski

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry

and interviews have appeared widely in literary journals internationally, including

Nimrod, Portland Review, Mandala Journal, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg,

Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Boston Poetry Magazine, and Poetry Quarterly. He has

published a travel book, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of

poems.

Jaclyn Piudik

Jaclyn Piudik has authored two chapbooks, Of Gazelles Unheard (Beautiful Outlaw, 2013)

and The Tao of Loathliness (fooliar press, 2005/8). Her poems have appeared in

anthologies and journals across North America, including Columbia Poetry

Review, Barrow Street, and The New Quarterly. She received a New York Times

Fellowship for Creative Writing and the Alice M. Sellers Award from the Academy of

American Poets. Jaclyn holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the City College of New

York and a Ph.D. in Medieval Literature from the University of Toronto. Her first full-

length collection, To Suture What Frays is currently under review.

Fabrice Poussin

Fabrice Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University, Rome, Georgia.

Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The

Chimes, and more than two dozens other magazines. His photography has been

published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River magazine and more than

seventy other publications.

Judith Kelly Quaempts

Judith Kelly Quaempts's lives and writes in rural eastern Oregon. Her poetry and

fiction appear online and in print, in such journals as Still Crazy, Windfall: A Journal of

Place, and Buddhist Poetry Review.

Anthony Rubino

Anthony is an avid terrace gardener, just taking in the last of the cherry tomatoes. As

far as reading goes, the stacks pile up…he is enjoying A Wild Perfection, the letters of the

poet James Wright, whom he studied with at Hunter College. Anthony is an artist, and

an art teacher, who is transitioning into writing. He lives in New York City his my wife,

and trusty research assistants, their dogs.

Terri Simon

Terri Simon lives in Laurel, Maryland with her husband and dogs. She has eclectic

interests, ranging from computers to spirituality. Her work has appeared in “Black

Mirror Magazine,” “Jellyfish Whispers”, “Mused,” “Rat’s Ass Review,” and others, as

well as the anthologies “A Mantle of Stars: A Queen of Heaven Devotional,” “Secrets

and Dreams,” and “Switch (The Difference).” She received honorable mention in Kind

of a Hurricane Press’ Editor’s Choice for 2015.

Carol Smallwood

Carol Smallwood’s recent books include Divining the Prime Meridian (WordTech

Communications, 2015); Water, Earth, Air, Fire, and Picket Fences (Lamar University

Press, 2014). A multi-Pushcart nominee in RHINO, Drunken Boat, she’s founded,

supports humane societies. Library Outreach to Writers and Poets: Interviews and Case

Studies of Cooperation is forthcoming from McFarland.

Alec Solomita

Alec Solomita is a writer and artist, who has published fiction in The Adirondack

Review, The Mississippi Review, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. Recently, his poetry has

appeared in, among other publications, 3Elements Literary Review, Algebra of

Owls, Driftwood Press, and The Fourth River. His drawings, paintings, and photographs

have appeared in several group shows as well as three one-person shows. His

photograph “André with birds” won the 2007 Adirondack Review photography contest.

He lives in Somerville, Mass.

Don Thompson

Don Thompson was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, and has lived in the

southern San Joaquin Valley for most of his life. Thompson has been publishing poetry

since the early sixties, including a dozen books and chapbooks. For more information

and links to his publications, visit his website San Joaquin Ink (don-e-thompson.com).